Means of snapping a karmically soul-crushing skid, or way to thumb their collective nose at frustratingly fickle fans?
You decide.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have a tradition when they win at home - a tradition they've been engaging in for a couple of seasons now - wherein, after the final seconds tick off the clock, the team gathers at the center of the ice at Air Canada Centre and raises their sticks in the air to salute the fans.
For some reason, after last night's 5-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning, a win that snapped a difficult and draining three-game losing streak - a streak which included a loss to the worst team in the league, another loss by seven goals, as well as an unfortunate incident involving a fan tossing a full can of beer onto the Leafs bench and more than one instance of fans throwing their jerseys onto the ice in anger and disgust - the team decided not to enact the usual ritual.
"While one member of the team told me afterwards that the group was simply looking to change things up and didn't intend to offend the paying customers, the gesture certainly left plenty of room for another interpretation," wrote Chris Johnston of Sportsnet Canada.
The Leafs, seemingly unable to do any two things right in a row, always taking one step forward followed quickly by several steps back, managed the victory over a quality young Lightning team, but then decided not to salute the very fans who came to watch them win, the fans who pay the bills and keep the lights on.
"The players appeared to make a last-minute decision to skip the salute to fans after beating the Lightning. On the video, Kessel can be seen saying something to captain Dion Phaneuf while the team congregated around winning goalie Jonathan Bernier before then skating along the procession and guiding some of his teammates off the ice."
Coach Randy Carlyle often refers to the endless chatter about and around the team as "white noise" and says he and the players do their best to tune it out.
But by doing something like this, they're showing that frustration - emanating both from the fans and from their own locker room - is taking a much more serious toll on their collective psyche than they'd like to admit.
